


put your circuits in the sea

by callmearcturus, mimsical



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Atlassassin Dirk, Bondage, Borderlands AU, Care and Feeding of your Feral Corporate Hitman, Cyborgs, Failed assassination attempts, M/M, Queer Themes, Siren Jake, Trans Jake English
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 06:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18204893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmearcturus/pseuds/callmearcturus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimsical/pseuds/mimsical
Summary: Borderlands AU RP between callmearcturus and mimsical.Atlas Assassin Dirk is sent on a mission to hunt down a suspected siren. The dossier left out a lot of details about his target.Siren Jake is minding his own business when a cyborg swordsfellow gets the literal drop on him. For his trouble, Jake gains a travel companion.





	put your circuits in the sea

**Author's Note:**

> A fun little RP.
> 
> mimsical handles the wandering buff siren boy.  
> callmeartcurus handles the angry cat atlas assassin.

Aegrus was the fucking pits. Easily the worst place amid the currently-dethawed parts of Pandora. Dirk had always hated the Dust and other desert regions because making his way through the sands was treacherous; he never knew where was safe to stand, to avoid sinking into the earth like the entire climate was quicksand. It got in the delicate machinery of his legs and gritted up the line of his spine. All he wanted after a mission out in the sand and heat was a deep clean and shower.

And yet Aegrus was worse. A desert wasn't actively malicious in the way it swallowed and shifted under you. A damp, shadowy place like Aegrus was. Vicious and filled with tempting spots that seemed like firm ground that only gave way to sucking damp earth.

Several times, Dirk leapt, propelling himself forward on the metal curve of his foot, only to be halted by the wet soil that clung to his metal legs.

If his target were anything but an honest-to-god siren, Dirk would go home and tell his handlers to fuck off.

As it was, Dirk climbed to higher ground, away from the murky waters and their dark shores, trying to use elevation to make is way through. He ached as he set out for treetops and oversized stalagmites, touching his ECHOshades and scanning the area.

Spore creatures. Creepy long-legged striders. Colorful local population. A siren should stand out in this place, the only brightness in the cavern but the glimmer of Helios and Elpis peaking through the roof. So where the hell were they?

As he sat there, peering around, Dirk drew his sword, and ran the blunt end over his compression suit, slaking off the mud that dared to cling to him. Why the hell was a siren in a swamp?

 

Jake wished, more than anything in the world, to be tucked away safe and sound in his caravan instead of out here in the muck with only his gold-plated intuition keeping him from being swallowed alive by one of these bottomless mud holes. 

In his caravan, he could be eating a hot dish of supper or watching a flick or snuggling in nice and cozy in bed. Hell, he could have been doing all three at once! But no. Janey had nagged and insisted and badgered him until he’d agreed to leave the safety of his four wheeled exoskeleton behind to go searching for a vault he’d already been a solid 90 on wasn’t going to be here.

By the time he’d done enough recon to convince her, he’d been heartily sick of the whole endeavor, and more than ready to brave the muddy pits again if it meant getting off of these craggy slopes and back in his home sweet ‘van. 

Of course, because the universe was a cruel place filled with creepy crawlies that paled in comparison with the god blasted fucking humans swarming around every which way, that was when he realized he was being followed. 

He didn’t know who was after him, but it was a fair guess as to the why. And of course he couldn’t call for help from the good old devil of Hyperion, away from the stabilizing boost the caravan gave him. And certainly he couldn’t try to make a call while so on edge. 

No, he was plain well friggin screwed. It was hide and scamper and stay ahead of the probable damn assassin or kidnapper or corporate jerkwad sniffing at his tail. At least he had the trees for cover and enough weird twisty turns to keep taking, but...

He was plumb well getting scared.

 

Dirk essentially circumnavigated the lofty cavern, taking to the walls like a particularly ornery spiderant and surveying from as high up as he could manage.

Nothing. There was no avoiding it. He had to explore inward.

Cursing under his breath, Dirk sent an errant signal to his legs, making the long springy metal glaives slide down, into place. Building up momentum from a dead stop was always an ordeal; he hopped from left to right for a few seconds, gaining lift and momentum with each landing and subsequent jump.

When the height felt good, the moved forward, hit right on the edge of the little cliff he'd been camping out on, and out.

Bog and silty earth soared past him, under him. Aiming true, he landed one-legged on an old tree, several meters from and below his starting point.

The fucking shitty tree bent under his weight; Dirk sucked in a breath and grasped the branches, keeping himself from falling off the damn thing. Still, it arched down, near enough to the ground he could hop down if he wanted.

Instead, he rode it back up as it steadied, clicking his glaives back up so let him stand on more solid soles. A whole mess of those annoying spores were drifting around now, clearly disturbed by him accidentally almost felling a whole tree.

One drifted in close to him, correctly locating the culprit. Sighing, he gently pushed it away. These things got mean if you hurt them. Best not to complicate matters when he was already so far behind his quarry.

Even if he located the siren, how was he supposed to extract them? This was such a fuck up, and Dirk was gonna have some words with the people back home when he returned.

 

Jake sucked in a sharp breath as movement caught his peripherals. He turned to watch as a tree partway across the cavern swayed like mad, swishing to and fro like it had been caught in its own personal storm. A whole swarm of gently glowing spores floated all about it, just to top the whole picture off. 

They were closer on his tail than he'd thought, clearly. This really wasn't good. 

Movement was always easier to spot. It depended on how thorough and also on how obvious his spyssassin tail was, though. If he held still until they ended up farther from him, he'd have a better chance of sneaking away and making a run for it. 

Of course, that depended on them not heading in his direction, by luck or otherwise. They might not see him immediately, but he could only hide so well. 

On the other hand, they were pretty shitty at sneaking around, seeing as he'd already gotten a solid glimpse as to their location. Jake wasn't the best sneaker in the world, but he certainly wasn't that bad. 

Better to stay put, then. See if they would make another move, and how, and where to. He might be able to keep pace if they started exploring, keep distance between them. Taking off running like a startled hen in the grass would only give away his few advantages at the moment. 

He squatted down lower and watched the tree sway, waiting and straining his eyes for any hint of motion out of step with the rest.

 

Eventually the spores drifted away, probably to find something worth aggro'ing on. It was Dirk's lucky day.

So to speak. Touching a finger to his ECHOshades, he scanned the surroundings for anything amiss.

Wet. Wet. Rocks. Boats. More wet. There were some strange electrical signatures over across the river, on the other side of the bog. It was probably another swarm of spores. But Dirk didn't have a ton to go on. Eventually, he could just take out his gun and set off the spores from afar, see what they gravitated towards in their simple-minded anger.

First, he'd slog through a little more. Just due diligence before moving onto his next step, and then the one after that which was packing up and hiking to the nearest Fast Travel to return to Atlas.

The river was wide. A longer span than he could reliably leap.

Thinking about it, Dirk ran a few numbers in his shades, and decided to be a little more proactive about his approach. Grabbing onto a fairly sturdy branch of the tree, he walked back, up towards the part where the tree narrowed into a willow cord of tension. Around him, the entire thing bowed, sinking further and further to the ground under Dirk's weight.

Releasing his glaives again, Dirk started to bounce, taking the tree back as far as he dared, eyes up and on the far bank. Numbers ran along his ECHO HUD. Waiting. Waiting.

Everything went green, and Dirk let go of the branch and ducked low. The tree recoiled against him, seeking revenge.

As it lifted and uncurled, Dirk jumped, airborne, and brought his knees up to prepare for landing. The river rushed by below him, there and gone in a blink.

Predictably, he landed perfectly on his two legs. The way he sank three inches into the loamy soil was less admirable.

But there was a more pressing issue, as soon as he came to a stop on the far shore. His HUD fizzled and popped, going out as a hum flooded his spine. Taking a quick bounce, Dirk landed out of the soil, bending into a defensive stance and looking around. What the hell was that?

 

Jake watched the tree do a full sproing!! like something out of old world Hollywood, and there! A long, slender shape came hurtling off of it, sailing over the river towards him. Jake flinched reflexively, nervousness crawling up another notch in him. He pressed his fingers to the ground to try and discharge some of the skittish feeling. 

Alrighty. So his lengthy shadow over there was headed in his direction. Bad luck, or else they had some way to pinpoint him. Goodness knows he could be a bit of a beacon at times. 

Staying put was clearly no longer in the plans. He was glad for the meager cover of the trees, at least. Slow and steady, right? He could swing this. 

His gaze flickered around, trying to pick out a good path to take. There was a denser little copse of trees off to his right a ways, though to get there he'd have to cross through an exposed area. To the left was more sparse cover, scattered trees, but rocky enough that his movements would be distorted. Forward was just the river, and the shadow with its grasping arms reaching out to snag him. 

Well, Jake was pretty damn good at not being snagged, most of the time. 

And, whether Janey liked it or not, he was good at doing it all on his own. 

He rose enough out of his crouch to move without risking his balance, and decided to try for the leftmost path. It would land him closer to the most ideal path out of this friggin deathtrap of a cavern. 

Worst come to worse, he could try swimming out, but that sounded like a quick trip to hypothermic wonderland, and possibly the electrocution of a number of innocent aquatic species.

 

Whatever was going on over here on this side of the river, it was like nothing Dirk had felt before. As he straightened, casting his gaze around him, there was something like a sparkler shoved into the plates of his spine. Fingers twitching, he reached back to rub the line as it crossed his lower back. Really he shouldn't have sensation there. His spinal augment was just a reinforcement; given how he hurled himself around the landscape of Pandora, he needed the plating to keep everything functioning and in place after fifty foot falls onto unforgiving earth.

He rubbed his spine and felt the sensation dissipate for a moment. As he pulled away, it slowly returned, a charge running through him.

"What the hell," Dirk muttered.

His HUD was not working, which was worrying. Interference. Something way beyond what the spores were capable of.

"Found you," Dirk muttered, and took a bounce between his legs, gaining enough momentum for a few quick leaps, then shot forward, aiming for the epicenter of that strange feeling that breathed life into lifeless limbs.

 

Ohhhh frigging shitting FUCK. This stranger was fast and their legs jutted out long and rail thin from their body, and in one short leap they landed within 20 feet of Jake. He froze immediately, desperately trying to find a way to stay hidden. 

He wasn't in the safety of a shadow anymore. They would spot him in seconds, this weird gazelle of a spyssassin that could leap a fucking river in one darn step! 

Jake was so screwed. He took a deep breath. He'd gotten through worse. He'd be okay. 

Those legs must be robotic. Nothing out of the ordinary really beside the tremendous vertical leap they apparently came equipped with. Maybe that was how they'd tracked him down, the crackly aura he tended to unintentionally broadcast. Drat it. 

Alright. Fine. He'd been found. Jake could live with that. 

He pushed himself up, stood to his full height, and looked directly at his cyborg stalker.

 

Oh jesus h. dick, yep this was the right direction. Dirk couldn't quiet his gasp as his body lit up with the humming electric feeling. It was like how he'd imagine falling through ozone would be, a mist not of moisture but nervous sensation around him. His hands clenched as he tried to control the urge to reach back and do something to dispel the shiver in his spine.

This had to be what it felt like, being seconds from a lightning strike. Impossible in this damp cavern, but still putting his teeth on edge. "Fffffuck that's weird," Dirk muttered, hopping on the toes of his glaives as if that would help.

Movement. With a snap, Dirk whipped his sword from his sheath, taking one step and pivoting slowly towards the source.

Blinking his ECHOshades off, their HUD still useless static, Dirk let the dark shielding of the glass fade. He peered through the dappled light and shadows, the pervasive dim of the cavern, and found his mark already looking at him, standing tall.

A siren. The stories were true about the blue tattoos, vivid even against dark skin. Dirk had read briefings on the late Commandant Steele and on the Firehawk, Lilith. This one was a decidedly different turn from the wiry, deadly sirens Atlas already knew about. They were broad in the shoulders and looked built like the proverbial brick shithouse.

Dirk grimaced and spun his sword once around his wrist before gripping it, ready. "Dossier didn't mention this. Getting you back is going to be a pain in the ass, what are you, around 200?" Maybe once the siren was knocked out, Dirk could retreat and longcast to Atlas, get some backup for retrieval.

 

Dossier. That made this fellow Atlas. Lovely. Real friggin peachy. 

They had a very smooth voice, but Jake still couldn't make out their face too well. Boy howdy did those robogams make them tall though. 

"Thereabouts," he replied. "Though I have no intention of coming anywhere with you. If someone's going to be slung over a shoulder my bet's on you, compadre."

Skinny thing they were, Jake was certain he could lift them easy enough. There, Atlas. Your move.

 

Whoa. Okay. Dirk left his response to a blink and quiet back-hop, making a little distance. After all, Dirk worked best with a running start.

"Well, as tempting as that may be, you would have to buy me dinner first. Unless, is the joke I would be dinner? Just how native have you gone, siren?"

The question has just barely left Dirk's mouth before he one-two sprints forward and thankfully finds a solid enough patch of dirt to spring upward, sailing over the siren's head to land behind in an easy low crouch. Out of range of even those impressive arms, hopefully.

The thought command from Dirk's cybernetics to the sword stalls for just a few milliseconds, interference making everything molasses. But his sword catches up, obediently flooding with current as he spins, steps up, perfect fucking grave thank you, and raps the blunt end of his sword into the siren.

As interesting as it was to be facing down some superhuman, he'd prefer it if they were unconscious now.

 

Jake flinched as they sailed over his head, an instinctive duck, and then they smacked him none too gently with... a sword, apparently. A sword that discharged a friendly shock of knock-out juice into his body. 

Well, that was nice and abrupt. Not particularly polite, were they?

Jake grabbed the sword unceremoniously and twisted around. He raised his eyebrows at them with just a touch of a sardonic tilt. "Thanks for the charge up," he said. "Nice of you, really, to provide that aforementioned meal, but honestly I was already pretty topped off."

He shoved the sword away from his body, back toward the Atlas fellow, and sent a hard snap of electricity ricocheting up it as he let go.

 

Dirk let go of the sword immediately when the siren grabbed it, his mind always at least thirty percent focused on his leverage and balance. Given how unusual his locomotion was when glaives out, he couldn't risk being thrown too much.

Physically, anyway. Dirk jumped back again in an instinctive defensive measure, making distance again as siren turned. His sword sparked in a way that smelled acrid and not good, landing in the grass between them.

Fuck. "That's fun. Electrical affinity. Didn't have that in the dossier either." He hopped back further, keeping his voice level and sardonic as his mind whirled. "I'll be sure to let Intelligence know, they'll push a patch out before you know it." He had the Chimera on him, but he was pretty sternly warned not to kill the siren, and honestly Dirk wasn't sure how well it sat with him besides, the idea of knocking off yet another of the six sirens in the known universe.

He was backing up too close to the tree cover, and nothing made Dirk more wound up than lack of escape routes. He side hopped, sliding in a wide circle around the siren, eyes scanning around for something.

There. Spores, just a few meters away, minding their own business. They looked corrosive or maybe explosive.

Dirk digistructed the Chimera from his weapon deck and took aim, firing a few wide shots into the swarm.

 

Oh now that was just fucking cruel. Jake liked the spores. They were pretty and harmless so long as they were left alone. 

Jake particularly didn't like it when the spores decided not to like him. Generally that meant it was time to make like a banana and do some splits. 

But of course grouchyface Atlas here wasn't about to let him do that. 

The spores were flaring and turning angry red. No bueno, super not good. Jake took a breath and decided to take a risk and just try to bail. 

Ignoring the threat of the spores, he focused on his nimble accoster and summoned up a deep learning lungful of a crackling hot shock and turned it into a half visible net of sparks meant for those gazelle legs, and threw it as hard as he could.

 

The idea was for the spores to distract the siren while Dirk-- frankly, while Dirk figured out another way to knock them out. Maybe a neck grab from behind? Somehow hit them with something heavy? That could go super bad, but if Dirk applied some good old Anshin heals, there probably wouldn't be a concussion.

However. Instead of that, instead of buying himself a little time to line up his next move, the siren didn't play ball. Instead of that, no, the siren fixed their crosshairs on Dirk with a tart little expression and did some bullshit siren magic.

The atmosphere of ozone turned into a solid wall of power. Dirk had enough time to attempt a side hop, but the entire air sparked, following him like lightning to a rod. Illumination popped like an exploding light bulb, and Dirk tasted pennies in the back of his throat.

His spine wasn't metal, but a long fluorescent bulb for a moment, bright and electric, flooding his body with sensations he really wasn't supposed to have strictly speaking.

Then, amid the hot snap of light, everything reversed, and went black.

 

* * *

 

After an arduous fucking mess of a trek out of the cavern with the universe's lengthiest assassin thrown over his shoulder, all the while trying to fend off some excessively pissed off spores, all Jake had to say for the venture was:

Oops. 

In retrospect, he might have zapped the fellow a bit too firmly. But he had been being so intimidating and tall and bouncing around in ways that were quite firmly impermissible, so Jake thought that, really, he could be forgiven for being a little overzealous with his counterassault. 

He sourly smacked up another electric shield to send an incandescently enraged spore rebounding off to soar away from him and hoisted his accidental captive up higher on his shoulder. At least he was lightweight. Modern prosthetics were quite a marvel. 

The spores finally let him be after he'd wound his way most of the way back up, which was nice, because he had to scramble over a downright slip n slide of a rocky sprawl to make it the rest of the way out. Pebbles kept coming loose under his feet and skittering away to plunge to their doom. It was disconcerting to say the least. 

A solid chunk of time had passed without so much as a twitch from his insensate companion, but Jake dumped him down on a boulder with a sigh. Might as well bind him up better now that he wasn't occupied playing the dashing defender to this douchebag damsel. That way he could make him way back from the land of nod at whatever pace so suited him without Jake having to fuss over it.

...Drat it all. He should message Jane, too.

Well, first he should bind up this fellow. Janey could wait a tick longer. 

Once Jake felt confident his ties would hold against even the most determined wriggling, he slung the man back over his shoulder. He had an ECHOcomm that might work, now that he was out of that pit and more relaxed. Gingerly extracting it and doing his level best to keep from sending any sparks into its circuitry, he tapped out a quick message to Jane. 

GT: Ill be unavailable for a bit! Got myself some atlasian assassin type gent with me so i wont be around to chat til im back at the caravan. Might be a bit but dont fret ive got it handled. Ciao for now!

 

The old cliche of electric sheep wasn't true. When Dirk slept, it wasn't old earth animals he dreamt, but of storms. The way the air smelled charged as one rolled in over the plains, sending stalker beasts into cover as clouds poured like milk through water, out from the ocean and encroaching on the shorelines. Since he finished out his surgeries, he always had a sense for the weather. There was just enough of a forewarning to it, he often woke from his small room in the Atlas Intelligence Facility, able to feel the impending rain even from three floors down into the basement.

It was perhaps how the old and injured could forecast from their aches. Dirk had always liked it, considered it a minor bonus to his augmentations.

The warm feeling tripping up and down Dirk's spine woke him. Consciousness returned shortly after his cybernetics came back online, the ambient feeling of his ECHO field initiating. The lights in his ECHOshades returned, making Dirk squeeze his eyes shut at the start-up splash screen projected right into his eyeballs.

Fuck, his head hurt. 

He waited through the start-up before finally opening his eyes, not wanting to worsen the migraine hanging just behind his brow. Blinking slowly, Dirk took in his surroundings.

Ass. He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again. The ass remained, a nice curve almost right in Dirk's line of sight as he woke. Below, legs working, walking steadily over somewhat uneven, sparsely grassy terrain. The world was going by around Dirk as he tried to bring himself back up to speed. It was difficult, with a weird storm's thrall holding over him, nestled into the alloy in his body.

His shades informed him of the time, and then Dirk woke up, because hours had passed and where the fuck was he? What were those coordinates?!

Jerking, Dirk tried to move, but there was a warm solid weight on the back of his knees, and his arms were bound behind his back. Shit. Shit shit. He grit his teeth and bucked against the-- the shoulder he was folded over. "What the fuck, who are you?" he snapped angrily. He worked his ankles, trying to slap his glaives into something soft and vulnerable. "Put me the fuck down!"

 

Oh, he was awake. Awake and wriggling like a particularly bamboozled fish. Likely he was still feeling the aftershocks of being zapped. 

"I'm Jake!" Jake said. "I'd say it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but I think the fact that I'm afraid I cannot oblige your request to be put down speaks for itself." 

To soften the refusal, he patted Dirk's hip consolingly before hopping over another jumble of rocks. Those damn lengthy legs kept threatening to bump into things. 

Jake would be very glad to get back to the caravan. 

"Planning to bestow your name on me any time soon, Atlas?" he prodded when he didn't immediately get a response.

 

The pat on his hip made him flinch, expecting some short, sharp shock to land on him, too close to his spine. No such pain or sensation came, and Dirk stilled enough to glare impotently at the grey, rocky earth. This siren wasn't killing him just yet. That was far from a comfort.

"They won't ransom for me," Dirk told Jake coolly. It was dispassionate and honest. Just the facts, ma'am. "Agents like me are considered disposable. If we fuck up and get in hot water, we're the orchestrators of our own downfall." Flicking his legs again, Dirk grit his teeth as his glaives continued to catch on nothing. "Knowing my name won't do shit, so either put me down and lets have a fair fight or finish me off."

 

"No thanks!" Jake replied cheerfully. "It's your name or bust, I'm afraid. Not planning on fighting today." 

However, his shoulder was getting a bit sore. A break, maybe, then perhaps a better way to carry him? Around the shoulders would be nice and easy, but he was a little worried about getting bitten.

He found a sizable rock and plunked his captive down on it. A quick ECHO check informed him that Janey hadn't replied yet. Maybe he'd lucked out and she was sleeping. He paused to stretch, working some of the strain out of his shoulder, and stifling a yawn. Some rest was definitely in order, whenever he had the right setup to immobilize this feisty little fucker. 

"So?" he asked finally, shaking out his arms and turning back to enjoy the full force of the scowl. "What'll it be?"

 

There was maybe an undignified yelp as Dirk was casually upended and bodily placed sitting on a rock. Immediately, he made another escape attempt, rolling off the rock onto his side with an oof of lost breath.

Godfuckingdammit this was embarrassing. He sat himself up, back against the rock, and examined the cords wrapped around his legs. Now that he was all back online, he tried to retract his glaives; they were more harm than good right now.

They made an attempt to fold back into his legs, only to catch on the cords, snapping back out with a hydraulic hiss. Now full glaring, Dirk rocked his ankles together, trying to budge the ties around him, to loosen them somehow.

This was some boy scout knotwork. The looped coils refused to move, even when Dirk found a jagged bit of stone to rub them against.

Frustrated and more than a little pissy about it, Dirk re-aimed his glare at the siren, and used the blade of his feet to lift a smallish rock, launching it to _thump_ into Jake's leg.

 

"Ow!" Jake hopped back with an aggrieved air. "Fine then, pissy! Nickname it is." 

He made a show of mock-tapping his chin in thought. "Hmmm. Been thinking of you as just Atlas, but that's dull as shit and we both know it. There're a frickton of robopuns available to us, obviously, but that's a bit trite. Altogether still too obvious." He eyed his assassin up and down blatantly. "I’ve got it. We'll go real classic. I'll call you Legs."

 

"Why is it always--" Stopping, Dirk took a deep breath. "Not sure why you're deliberating my name is more important than... whatever you have planned." He didn't want to outright ask why Jake hadn't killed him yet. Instead, he scanned his eyes and shades over Jake, looking for clues. The ECHOshades couldn't pick up anything useful through the sort of... electrical field that the siren was cloaked in, but Dirk could extrapolate on his own.

"That's Hyperion gear," Dirk noted aloud. "If your plan is to make me spill out where the Atlas armories are hidden, you should know I'm not from that division and not privy to that information." He lifted his chin, narrowing his eyes at Jake. "And if you so much as hint at sending me up to Helios, I'll set myself to self-destruct."

Which he couldn't actually do, but Jake didn't know that.

 

"Pretty sure I could fry you before you succeeded," Jake replied lightly. "But I don't go to Helios anyway. I keep breaking their WiFi." 

With one final stretch, Jake strode forward to pick up his squirmy package again. Legs writhed and tried to double-knee him and knock their skulls together, but Jake persevered and finally prevailed. He tossed Legs back over his shoulder, rose up to his full height, and started off again. The landscape was familiar, and judging from the coordinates and some quick mental math, he was pretty sure they'd reach the caravan within an hour or two. 

Depending, of course, on the level of cooperation Legs offered him, so it might yet be another goddarn seven, and if it took that long Jake was making him sleep on the roof.

 

The more he spoke to this guy, the more Dirk didn't like the situation he found himself in. The cannibalism joke had an ounce of truth to it-- this was Pandora after all-- but Dirk knew he was too lean to make a meal of. This guy wasn't demanding any secrets about Atlas. He hadn't contacted Hyperion even though, as always, Helios was visible hanging in the sky.

As Dirk went down the list and ran low on options, he grew fair fucking worried about what this siren wanted. Maybe it was some Siren Thing that he didn't know. There were only the six in the universe, allegedly, and no one knew much about them. With powers that already bordered on the mystical, there was a lot of catastrophizing Dirk could do thinking about the wider possibilities.

Hell, this one was electric. Maybe he didn't want dinner, but a walking battery. What if he *ate* energy like that? Order up a eridium salad with some power cell croutons.

Sure, even if Dirk was getting a little ridiculous in his theorycraft here.... fuck this? Yeah, fuck this.

Leverage was a pain from this position. Dirk squirmed, trying to shift where he was folded over Jake's shoulder. Not too much to make it obvious what he was doing. It took some tenuous repositioning to get where he could brace on his sternum enough.

Then, he bent his legs back. Bent his spine. Rolled into an arch and tipped his hips until he could escape Jake's grip, falling right down along his back and to the ground. From there, it wasn't hard to tuck his chin to his chest and land on his shoulders, rolling out and carrying momentum to his knees. Compressing enough to get his bound hands at the cords around his legs was hard, borderline painful, but he got his nails in and started to pull at the loops.

 

"Oh, no you frigging don't," Jake said, whirling about. Legs had managed to roll himself a few steps back and was trying to free his miles of namesake from their binds. Jake lunged back at him, ignoring the snarl and upraised hands it brought him, and closed a hand on a shiny metal appendage. He attempted to rear back and haul Legs with him, but Mister Prissy Atlas Douchefiend was having none of it. 

Legs tried to kick out at him and managed to get Jake with the side of one of his legs, nearly slicing Jake's calf. Oh, jeepers goshdamn creepers, those blades were sharp. Jake didn't like that one bit. 

"You're not running off, I'm not having it!" he said, and flung himself forward again, this time getting both of his hands on those damn tempests of a pair of gams, and he summoned up his will or brains or wants or whatever it freaking was that Janey tried to harp on about him needing to hone, and stabbed into the prosthetics with his powers. 

"You're going to stay put and hold still," Jake said, and he could taste the electricity nipping at his teeth as he did his damnedest to get this wriggling fish to reel himself to stationary. 

Legs yelped and his back arched and his eyes blew wide, but they stayed open, and his legs went still and stiff as a board. 

Jake gave it a minute to make sure it would hold, and then he sat back and released Legs from his grip. "There we are," he said. "Now you'll not go nowhere on those sticks of metal, and I doubt you want to lie yourself out here all helpless and edible for whatever beastie feels in need of a nibble. You've got better odds with me. Now come on, and if you try this again I will have to drag you behind me all the way to the caravan, don't think I won't!" 

He got his feet under himself even as Legs snarled at him, preparing to lift him up once more.

 

Some of the cords pulled as Dirk attempted to free himself, but he didn't get far enough before the siren grabbed him again. Teeth grit, Dirk threw himself down on this shoulder, trying to free up his legs for some fencing. From the indignant, pained noises behind him, Jake was learning the glaives were sharped along one curve. Wouldn't wanna lose any fingers, there, siren.

Dirk blindly kicked, waiting for a solid landing of metal to flesh. Before he could manage it, Jake's heavy hands slapped down on the metal seating of his legs, palms against Dirk's unforgivingly hard thighs.

Something shot into Dirk like a lancet, not finding immalleable metal, but something deeper than his chassis. A sharp gasp wrenched out of Dirk at the sudden shock of feeling where he wasn't meant to have any, a blinding white flash that drenched his legs. It was impossible to tell if it was a flash of heat or of ice cold, the sensation was so foreign.

Worse, it uncoiled and jabbed up through the metal and cybernetics of Dirk's spine, the same rush of impenetrable confused intensity. Eyes wide open, Dirk's illuminated spine arched nearly on its own accord, holding him bent for a long moment before he slumped onto his back panting.

When awareness filtered back in through the static, Dirk blinked up at Jake, face hot and body tingling all over. "Caravan.... what the hell--" He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to drag his legs back under his command. They were too busy sorting through the elation of fed phantom sensation to do anything.

Jake bent to lift him again and Dirk bared his teeth, but it lacked the heart of before. He felt like his toes had gone to sleep; he did not have toes. His hips fit against his captor's broad shoulder again, and Dirk hung limply. "What did you _do?"_ he asked when he could finally get the weird shiver out of his voice.

 

"Just a little trick of mine," Jake said, adjusting the slack weight of his burden against his shoulder. Legs no longer struggled, perhaps merely from the shock of being so immobilized, but either way it suited Jake just fine. 

Keep this up and his shoulder would ache; perhaps in a bit he'd switch sides just to keep things even. But for the time being, the little crisis seemed well averted, and he began walking again. 

"Simply put," he finally continued, "I don't mind knocking you down flat on this little inversion of a tush you've got here, so you may as well save us both the sweat and keep still. Honestly, you gave yourself a pair of gazelle gams like these but didn't bother to spruce up the cushion? Doesn't make much sense to me, though I'm no engineer."

He patted Leg's leg just below the crease of his ass to get his meaning across and jumped over a boulder. He truly, truly could not wait to get home and get this wriggly bastard properly trussed up. Things would be so much simpler once he was back at home sweet 'van. 

(But then he'd have to talk to Jane, oh dear. It kept creeping back up, didn't it.)

"Just stay quiet and we'll get out of the open faster," he concluded at last, and hoped Legs would take the advice.

 

The thing about enduring a wave of phantom static shit was that…

Dirk let his head hang and started to breathe deeply, trying to calm down. In the wake of Jake’s ‘little trick’ Dirk felt sort of tired. Trying to wrestle away from this siren just wasn’t working, and now Dirk could feel bruises forming, along his shoulders where he’d landed before. Like the shock treatment had unpinned something in his limbs, an ache was setting in.

It wasn’t like he was giving in. He’d tried multiple times to get away. What he needed was a different plan, a different tact if he wanted to get free. Shoring up his strength and waiting for the right moment was his best bet right now.

He shut his eyes for a moment before blinking them open again, slowly.

“Sorry about the cushion. I don’t expect you to understand the fine visceral machine of the body, but fuckin’ with it more than necessary is always a risk.” He shifted irritably as Jake patted his ass. “Stop that.”

Leaving the open faster. Well, it wasn’t like Dirk could call for help or anything. Even if he lucked out and there was someone nearby, it’d likely be moving out of the frying pan and into the gross stew pot. Wherever they were headed, Dirk would have to try his next escape from there.

Sighing, Dirk stared down at Jake’s (much more plush) ass and asked, “Are we there yet?”

 

"Not quite, but soon," Jake said. The rocky mess of a landscape was finally breaking up more with patches of green, and he recognized the area better than he had for the past half-hour. Some ways off, if he stood up tall and squinted, he was fairly sure that the larger copse of trees just off to the southwest was the same spot he'd stashed the caravan in. "Sooner if you don't wriggle!" 

Not that Legs would really be going anywhere any time soon, Jake thought, but perhaps it would be better to keep under wraps the exact estimated length of time his electrical gifts would keep Legs down. 

The sight of the end of this uncomfortable trek was inspiring, and he felt a fatigued boost of vigor. It would be so nice to lie down in his actual bed instead of squatting on uncomfortable rocks. After having an assassin — an actual freaking assassin! — try to hunt him down, Jake thought he had well earned the right to plop down in the driver's seat and spin around in it like a gleeful child. At his degree of post-adrenalized exhaustion, he didn't think he'd even mind if Legs laughed at him. 

They were certainly still a ways off, but at their current briskish speed, with the estimated distance… "Perhaps 20 more minutes," he decided at last. 20 minutes, one heavy package plunked down on the floor, a spin in his favorite chair, and then he'd have to find a way to tie Legs up in case the zapping wore off early.

But then, then he'd finally be done with this long mess of a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this has been stewing for a _while_. if you'd like to see some character designs, cool siren tattoos, and how the heck dirk's leggies work, then check out the [tag!](https://callmearcturus.tumblr.com/tagged/borderlands-au) there's some fun and gorgeous art.


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